Last Chevy Cruze rolls off the line at Lordstown Assembly. What's next for the Ohio GM plant?

General Motors will end production this week at the first of five North American plants it wants to close by early next year as part of a companywide restructuring. Production at the Lordstown, Ohio plant ends on Wednesday. (March 5)
AP

For the first time in over 100 years, GM won't be assembling automobiles in Ohio.

Just two years ago, the plant employed 4,500 workers. After two rounds of shift eliminations, the plant was down to roughly 1,700 hourly employees. A few hundred employees will remain at the plant, building service parts, through the end of March.

Wednesday was a somber day in the Mahoning Valley, an area about 60 miles southeast of Cleveland that's endured several rounds of manufacturing job losses in recent decades. GM's November announcement came one week after the community started a grassroots campaign for adding jobs to the plant.

What's next?

GM is idling the plant, which means it will be maintained so that it can be put back into operation if the company decides to put a new vehicle there. That's the outcome Lordstown workers and officials are hoping for.

Lordstown has produced sedans, vans and compact cars including the fuel-efficient Cruze – why not a small SUV or electric vehicles? Retooling is expensive, but state tax credits or grants could help.

Ohio Sens. Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown said Wednesday they continue to urge GM to move production of electric vehicles into Lordstown Assembly.

"We've got to get GM to look at this differently," Portman, a Terrace Park Republican, said Wednesday morning on CNN. “It doesn’t mean they can’t put another product in there and give the worker the opportunity to prove themselves, which they will."

In this file photo, an auto worker takes a photo of the first Chevy Cruze compact sedan to come off the assembly line in Lordstown on Sept. 8, 2010.(Photo: Amy Sancetta, AP)

Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, reintroduced his "American Cars, American Jobs" bill to incentivize American auto sales. Buyers would get a $3,500 discount on American-made cars ($4,500 for hybrid or electric vehicles.) Car companies that move production overseas would lose a tax break, and that revenue would pay for the buyer discounts.

“They don’t say no – they just don’t say yes to something,” Brown told reporters Wednesday. “And if they say no, we’ll look for someone else to come in and buy it.”

Brown, a possible 2020 challenger to Republican President Donald Trump, was again critical of the president’s response to the Lordstown closure.

During a 2017 rally in the region, Trump told attendees not to sell their houses or move, that manufacturing jobs would be returning to the valley – an area that helped him win Ohio in 2016 and could be important in 2020. Trump threatened retaliation against GM soon after the November announcement.

Gov. Mike DeWine met with Trump last week and said the president is concerned about the Lordstown plant shutting down.

Why can't a new company take over the plant?

DeWine met with GM CEO Mary Barra in January. Afterward, he said GM gave no indication it would be putting a new line in the plant. DeWine said he has the impression GM is talking to other manufacturers about moving into the facility.

That can't happen as long as GM has the plant in "unallocated" status.

A GM spokeswoman said the plant will remain "safe and secure." An undisclosed number of employees will maintain the facility going forward.

Long term plans for the facility will be determined after UAW-GM contract negotiations later this year.

Until then, Green and his Mahoning County neighbors will remain vigilant.

"We've spent decades helping others in the area and now that we're in a time of need, we have that support flow back in our direction," Green said.